"SHEVILLE - Like many kids his age, 5-year-old Titus Young has grown up consuming sugary drinks and foods. And now, like a growing number of children, Titus has three cavities and a crown on his baby teeth.Advertisement

He is not unique. Local doctors say tooth decay is on the rise among young children."

"Local dentists say they are seeing more young children with cavities than ever before.

Dr. Joshua Paynich, a local dentist, said he diagnoses about 10-20 children a week with severe, early childhood tooth decay. Paynich said he sees children who have cavities, crowns and even have to get their teeth removed."

Monday, July 23, 2007

"Australian Dental Association Tasmanian president Errol Kilov said recent research had shown tooth decay in six-year-olds had risen by 56 per cent and by a massive 71 per cent among 14- and 15-year-olds in just six years."

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

"Dr. Nancy Sue Seale, chairwoman of the department of pediatric dentistry at the Baylor College of Dentistry in Dallas, testified that only one in seven young Texans on Medicaid last year received the twice-yearly dental checkups that the federal government requires.

She called that fiscally imprudent because cavities and other problems are ignored until expensive surgery is needed.

Dr. Seale said a small number of children die from the general anesthesia required for many operations, which makes the state's failure to provide routine checkups not only foolish but inhumane."

Friday, July 06, 2007

"Most weekday mornings, children and their harried parents join a long line at the pediatric dentistry clinic of the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Dentistry. Dr. Indru Punwani sees patients as young as 2 with acute pain and facial swelling. Many have never had regular oral care, or they need a follow-up after emergency treatment elsewhere.

Punwani, head of the college's pediatric dentistry department, sees daily evidence that the incidence of tooth decay in young children is growing"

"Community health services are straining to meet demand. Cook County Bureau of Health Services officials said the county maintains five dental clinics in the suburbs and offers emergency treatment (usually tooth extractions) and oral surgery at Stroger Hospital. But the hospital's routine dental care for children and adults ended this year when three dentists were laid off, primarily because of budget considerations."

"'I see it every day,' said Maher, a pediatric dentist. 'I see cavities in babies who are a year old.'

Maher has 13 patients under the age of 4 awaiting surgical removal of their cavities. They can't handle the typical in-office procedure so they must visit the hospital and have it done under general anesthesia."

"When David Woodman announced he was going to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, for major dental work, his son Josef thought his dad had lost his mind. He had visions of untrained dentists burrowing into his father's mouth, clutching fistfuls of rusty needles.

So the younger Woodman tagged along to make sure his father would not fall victim to foreign quackery. 'Instead of what I feared, he got a board-trained dentist in a great clinic, with state-of-the-art instruments and panoramic X-rays,' says Woodman, who was so impressed that he ended up researching and writing the book 'Patients Beyond Borders' on the phenomenon of medical tourism. 'And he saved $11,000 on a mouthful of teeth.'

Woodman's father is not alone in looking abroad for a medical overhaul. After all, if the American healthcare system is not completely broken, it is certainly dysfunctional: 47 million people have no health coverage, and 130 million have no dental insurance."

Sunday, July 01, 2007

"The oral health of Victoria's preschoolers is so poor that Dental Health Services Victoria says the average six-year-old starts school with three to four teeth decayed, missing or needing filling.

While health authorities have poured money into campaigns targeting childhood obesity, what the dental service calls the 'twin epidemic' of the alarming state of juvenile oral health has been largely overlooked."